Keynote speeches

Haptic interaction of hair and textiles

Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann - MIRALab-University of Geneva, Switzerland and IMI-NTU, Singapore

-- March 19 Saturday, 9:30-10:30

 The 3D representation of animated objects is largely exploited in many industries since over two decades. The touch-based interaction with such objects for modelling purposes is an increasingly active research area with huge application potential. However, simulating the contact interactions enabling to model complex deformable objects in virtual reality environments and reproducing the associated haptic sensations are challenging tasks. Their computationally intensive character requires defining an appropriate trade-off between the allowed simulation accuracy and the requested performance. Time-critical tasks must be individually computed at the desired speed and efficiently synchronized in order to enable a physically plausible interaction experience. Hence, applications enabling haptics-based manipulation require a tailored and computationally efficient design. In our presentation, we discuss two such systems for the interaction with hair and textiles.  Results of the European Research Project Haptex will be presented.

Bio:
Prof. Nadia Magnenat Thalmann has pioneered research into virtual humans over the last 30 years. She obtained several Bachelor's and Master's degrees in various disciplines (Psychology, Biology and Biochemistry) and a PhD in Quantum Physics from the University of Geneva in 1977. From 1977 to 1989, she was a Professor at the University of Montreal in Canada.
From 1989 to 2010, she has been a Professor at the University of Geneva where she founded the interdisciplinary virtual worlds research group MIRALab. She was the coordinator of several European Research Projects, among them the European Center of Excellence InterMedia and the European Center of Excellence 3D Anatomical Human. She is also Editor-in-Chief of the Visual Computer Journal published by Springer Verlag, co-Editor-in-Chief of the journal Computer Animation and Virtual Worlds published by Wiley, Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Multimedia and editor of many other scientific journals. For her scientific and artistic work, she has received several awards, among them the nomination of Woman of the Year in Montreal in 1988, the nomination as Computer Pioneer in the hall of fame at the Computer Museum of Padeborn in Germany and the selection of her work on Virtual Marilyn at the Modern Art Museum in New York in 1988. She is a life member of the Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences (SATW). 
Together with her PhD students, she has published more than 500 papers on virtual humans and virtual worlds with applications in 3D clothes, hair, body modelling and medical simulation of articulations.
She has been invited to give more than 350 keynote speeches in various institutions and organizations, among them the World Economic Forum in Davos. She has been Vice-Rector at the University of Geneva from 2003-2006. In 2009, she received a Dr Honoris Causa from the Leibniz University of Hanover in Germany. In May 2010, Professor Nadia Thalmann received the prestigious Distinguished Career Award from the European Association for Computer Graphics. In June 2010, she received an Honorary Doctorate of the University in Ottawa in Canada. She is presently Professor and Director of the Institute for Media Innovation (IMI) at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore and Director of MIRALab at the University of Geneva, Switzerland.

Future Narrative, Discovery Engines
and Making Meaning in VR

-- March 20 Sunday, 13:30-15:00

 At the heart of innovative techniques for virtual reality, are the corporeal experience and the evolution of a heterogeneous range of interactive relationships that come together to constitute co-active, co-creative and emergent modalities of viewer incorporation in the data sphere. Embodiment explodes traditional narrative strategies and signals a shift from isolated individual experience to interpersonal theaters of exchange and social engagement.  In addition, the opportunities offered by interactive and 3D technologies for enhanced cognitive exploration and interrogation of high dimensional data are rich fields of experimentation that need to be realized within the domain of both humanities and sciences.

This presentation will focus research at the recently established Applied Laboratory of Interactive Visualization and Embodiment (ALiVE). ALiVE is an interdisciplinary research initiative of the School of Creative Media City University of Hong Kong, situated in a 1000 sq.m. facility at the Hong Kong Science Park. The Lab builds on creative innovations that have been made over the last ten years at the UNSW iCinema Research Centre, ZKM Centre for Art and Media and at Museum Victoria. Its challenge-led research programs respond to the academic, cultural and industrial opportunities that are emerging throughout Asia. ALiVE is an incubator and innovations showcase for new forms of creativity at the cutting edge of digital media in society. Leveraging technological advances in cinema, games, and mobile, networked and participatory media, ALiVE researches innovative modes of immersive interactive experience that are of major relevance to the societal future of culture, entertainment, education and industry. Its pioneering infrastructure is made up of a number of unique virtual reality and augmented reality display environments, panoramic production systems and computer graphics techniques. The applications discussed will include ground-breaking works in media art, cultural heritage, situated gaming and digital humanities.

Jeffrey Shaw (Homepage):

Dean and Chair Professor of Media Art, School of Creative Media, CityU Hong Kong. Jeffrey Shaw has been one of the leading figures in new media art since the 1960’s. He has pioneered and set benchmarks for the creative use of digital media technologies in the fields of virtual and augmented reality, immersive Visualization environments, navigable cinematic systems, and interactive narrative. He was cofounder of the Eventstructure Research Group, Amsterdam (1969-1979), founding director of the ZKM Institute for Visual Media, Karlsruhe (1991-2002), and co-founding director of the UNSW iCinema Research Centre, Sydney(2003-2009).  Currently Shaw is Chair Professor of Media Art and Dean of the School of Creative Media at City University Hong Kong. He is a founding Director of ALiVE.

Sarah Kenderdine (Homepage):

Sarah Kenderdine researches at the forefront of interactive and immersive experiences for museums and digital humanities. Her current work focuses on human centered virtual system design, visual analytics for large-scale heterogeneous cultural datasets and new emergent narrative forms in stereoscopic and panoramic immersive architectures. She is concurrently head of Special Projects, Museum Victoria, Melbourne; Visiting Associate Professor, City University, Hong Kong and Director of Research at ALiVE (Applied Laboratory of Interactive Visualization and Embodiment) at the Hong Kong Science Park. She is an Adjunct Professor, School of Communication and Media, RMIT University (Discipline of Games and Animation 2010-2013) and Visiting Scholar, UC Berkeley.

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For general information about the symposium, please contact the general co-chairs:
 - Hyun Seung Yang, (KAIST, Korea)
 - Zhigeng Pan, (Zhejiang University., China)
 - Yasuyuki Yanagida, (Meijo University., Japan)
 - Adrian Cheok, (NUS, Singapore)
 ISVRI-all@googlegroups.com